


double vision wrapped in last night's party clothes

by amirlywritingfanficnow



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Buck is bad with words in this one, Eddie is surprisingly not, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evan "Buck" Buckley Needs A Hug, Lack of Communication, Love Confessions, Mentions of Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29057658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amirlywritingfanficnow/pseuds/amirlywritingfanficnow
Summary: "I have always been honest with you." When Eddie's voice cracks, Buck's composure almost cracks with it. "Why can't you just be honest with me?"orWhen Buck is let in on a long kept family secret, he doesn't know what to do. He almost ruins things with the one person that keeps him from feeling like he's floating away with no way to land, but it ultimately turns out okay with help of a little communication.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 14
Kudos: 384





	double vision wrapped in last night's party clothes

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings;   
> minor emetophobia in the beginning, a non descriptive anxiety attack, car accidents and a very minor original character death 
> 
> i kind of liked the adoption theory for the buck begins secret, and even tho recent synopsis sounds like its otherwise, i still had to finish this :) it got away from me and it's not necessarily my favorite thing ive ever written but i hope you enjoy it and please be careful of the warnings!!!

From the moment he woke up with a pounding headache and an arm wrapped around his waist, Buck knows he fucked up. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, waking up hungover in someone else’s bed, not being able to remember a thing. The feeling of knowing he fucked up, it was nothing new. 

But that wasn’t  _ him  _ anymore. He doesn’t drink until he can’t remember anything except the sensual touch of whoever’s finger tips, not anymore. He doesn’t do one night stands anymore. That was all  _ Buck 1.0.  _ That wasn’t who Buck was anymore, so before even opening his eyes to see what kind of room he’s in and who he’s with, he feels enough shame to make him nauseous. 

Dread consumes him when his eyes flicker open to the all too familiar plaid blankets and the toned, tattooed arm around him. 

_ Eddie Diaz. Eddie fucking Diaz. Edmundo Diaz. His best friend. His partner. His entirely platonic other half. Oh, fuck. He truly did fuck up. Eddie didn’t do one night stands, ever, so maybe this was an entirely platonic and clothed cuddle. He doesn’t have to freak out just yet.  _

Then his eyes fall on his boxers on the floor and—

_ What the fuck happened?  _

He swallows down his need to vomit and winces slightly as he tries to lift Eddie’s arm off of him without waking him up. He can’t believe he’s sneaking out of his best friend’s house, a house that he’s never really felt like a guest in. The thought sends a shock of pain through his heart, realizing how truly bad he fucked up. 

As he quickly and quietly dresses, his phone buzzes on the floor loud enough to make Eddie stir. He cringes and grabs his phone as quick as possible, letting out a breath of relief when Eddie doesn’t wake. 

The second he catches sight of the multiple missed calls and texts notifications on his phone, he freezes as everything comes back to him. 

_ “Nothing I ever did was good enough… now I know why.” _

Bile rises to his throat as everything rushes back to him and he books it out of Eddie’s house, barely making it to his car before he empties his stomach of all the alcohol and absolutely none of the shame. 

He’s in his car and on the road by the time he realizes it’s hard to catch his breath and tears are blurring the road ahead of him. 

_ Name five things you can see,  _ he hears Eddie’s voice in his head. Eddie is one of the sources of his anxiety right now, but he’d helped the last time so Buck goes through it in his head as he pulls over.

_ Five things you can see. The red truck he’s parked behind. A woman walking her dog. House with pink shutters. Halloween decorations. The pool in someone’s backyard.  _

_ Four things you can feel. His steering wheel vibrating under his hands. The air from his vents. Sweat soaking his back. His head against the headrest. _

_ Three things you can hear… _

By the time he’s through with listing things, he can breathe normally and his vision is cleared enough to drive the rest of his way home. He’s not very religious, but he prays that no one is waiting for him when he enters his apartment.

His heart clenches when his phone buzzes with a text from Eddie and shuts his phone off before he can see what he had to say. 

_ “Buck? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at Chimney’s with your parents?”  _

_ Before Eddie can ask anymore questions, Buck shakes his head. “Do you have any alcohol?” _

_ “You came here for a beer?” Eddie asked incredulously, eyebrows raised.  _

_ “I was thinking something stronger.” _

-

His head pounds as he makes his way into the station, a half hour before his shift, and he immediately wants to leave.  __ He knows Eddie is going to walk in any minute now, and Chimney, too. He doesn’t know if he can look at either of them right now. 

_ “You knew?” Buck spits out at Chimney, the betrayal he’s feeling so strong he steps back as if he was physically struck.  _

_ “Buck—”  _

_ “No… don’t…”  _

“Have a good morning, Buck?” Bobby asks as Buck enters the loft.  _ What does he know? _

“Why?” He asks defensively, causing his captain to sit up a little straighter with his eyebrow raised. 

“You okay?” 

_ “There’s something I need to show you…” _

_ “What is this? Who is this?” _

_ “Evan…” _

“Yeah, of course.” He tries to smile but he knows it’s a grimace. He’s usually okay at faking smiles and acting like everything is fine when it’s not, but now absolutely nothing is okay, he realizes. Everything that he found comfort in when things were falling apart has been tainted by this  _ secret  _ now.

Chimney had known something about Buck that he hadn’t known about himself and continued to look him in the eyes like he wasn’t keeping something huge. He feels nauseous all over again at the thought of seeing him today, and he’s not even mad, he’s just hurt. 

Eddie should be walking in right about now and Buck’s heart is in his throat when he hears footsteps coming up the stairs and he’s just not ready for the Eddie confrontation so he’s the tiniest bit relieved when it’s Chimney instead. 

“Oh, thank God you’re alive,” is not what he expects to come out of Chimney’s mouth but Buck’s heart clenches in a way that hurts.

_ “I told him because I was trying to protect you,”  _

_ “That doesn’t make it any better!”  _

Eddie just reaches the top step when Bobby starts the beginning of shift announcements and Buck thanks his lucky stars that there wasn’t time for a confrontation between announcements and chore assignments. 

He looks up for one second to meet Eddie’s eye before averting eye contact in less than a second. 

“Buckley, you’re with me on getting lunch started!” 

He’s relieved he’s not with Eddie or Chimney, but he has a feeling he knows why Bobby is assigning him to lunch duties, and that was so he could pry whatever out of him. He’d done it a few times, and normally Buck didn’t mind but this wasn’t something he wanted to even admit, let alone tell his Captain about it.

_ “Don’t you dare walk out that door!” His dad’s voice boomed around the apartment, reminding him of all of the times talks about his grades and his future turned into screaming matches.  _

“Buck!” His head snaps up at the sound of Bobby’s voice.

“Yeah?”

Bobby gestures with his eyes at his hand that was currently covered in the tomato he didn’t realize he was squishing in his hands. 

“Oh.” 

Bobby clears his throat from behind Buck as he rinses off his hands. “Alright, what’s going with you? Where’s your head at? Is it the bomb threat call that’s got you so bothered?”

Buck shakes his head. “It’s nothing, Bobby.”

“It’s not nothing, Buck. Is it your parents?” Bobby knows he’s onto something when Buck tenses. “You don’t have to talk to me about it but you do have to let me know if you’re not in the headspace to—”

The alarm blares and Buck jumps into action before Bobby can even finish his sentence. He’s fine to go out on calls, he has to be, he cannot sit there at the station with the storm that’s raging in his head. He needs to do the one thing he can’t fuck up.

Bobby gives him a look as he gears up but he just gives him a thumbs up and hops into the truck.

Eddie is across from him, trying to meet his eye yet again but Buck continues to stare out the window. He knows he’s being a coward, he does, but his stomach drops whenever he thinks of meeting Eddie’s eyes, dreads seeing the ‘ _ it was a mistake' eyes _ . He dreads seeing the inevitable. 

_ “What do you want, Buck?” Eddie pants above him, eyes dark and searching. _

_ “Make me forget.” He sounds desperate and he is, he’s desperate to forget and he’s desperate for Eddie.  _

_ “Make you forget what?”  _

_ “Just make me forget, please, Eddie. Please.” _

“Will you look at me?” Eddie’s voice filters in through the headset. 

Buck takes a deep breath in and releases it before he looks to Eddie. Brown eyes meet his blue and Buck immediately sees the frustration in the way his eyebrows scrunch, but he can also see the fear and  _ he did this. _

“Are we okay?” 

The grimace returns. “Of course, Eds, why wouldn’t we be?”

“You left before–”

_ “Buck… please don’t leave. We can talk about this.” _

_ “You didn’t talk about it for twenty-nine years, why do we have to talk about it now?” _

“Buck, let’s go!” Hen shouts as she shuts the door and Buck really needs to get in the right headspace because if Bobby benches him  _ now,  _ after quite literally everything in his life is falling apart, he might not be able to recover from this.

His heart is beating erratically as he uses the K-12 to get the door off of the T-boned car, Eddie by his side with the Jaws. The girl in the driver’s seat, probably not even eighteen yet, is hysterical and Eddie tries to calm her down but the door won’t budge with just the Jaws. 

Her screams get louder the second the door is pulled off and when a name tears through her gut wrenching sobs, Buck notices Hen about three feet away giving CPR to a middle aged woman. 

“Julia!” 

“Ma’am, I need you to stay still for me while I get this on you,” Eddie’s controlled tone echoes through Buck’s ears.

“Please don’t let her die, please, this is my fault!” 

Buck swallows the lump in his throat before he focuses his full attention on the girl. “Miss, listen to me,” he tries so she won’t turn her head to him. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Samantha.” She chokes out but it seems like she’s calming down enough for Eddie to put the C-Collar on while Chimney keeps her head stabilized. “Please, you have to save her, she–”

She starts shaking her head again, as best as she can between Chimney’s hands and Buck is so worried she’s going to cause more possible damage to her spine so he blurts out the first thing he can think of to keep her calm. “Tell me about Julia.”

“What? You have to  _ save  _ her.”

Buck sighs. “We’ve got the best paramedic in the LAFD working on her right now, okay? Can you tell me about her?”

Samantha sniffles. “I- I don’t know anything about her. She’s my b-birth-” she chokes on a sob. 

“She’s my birth mother.”

_ “Maddie… who is this?” _

_ “It’s you… with your birth mother.” _

Of fucking course. 

His heart stutters a beat before his eyes glance up at Chimney in the back and meets his eye before focusing his attention back on Samantha who’s still talking. 

“...and I was just giving her a ride home. I thought that was the nice thing to do and now she’s  _ dead.  _ She gave me life and  _ I killed her!” _

“Hey, no, you didn’t kill her. This isn’t your fault.” Buck promises vehemently, because he can. The accident wasn’t her fault, it was the drunk driver who had T-boned them and tried to flee the scene. 

“I… I found the records when I was cleaning out the garage during quarantine. My parents don’t even know I was meeting with her and I should have listened to them because she’s-she’s-”

“It’s okay, Samantha. We’re getting you out of here now.” Buck keeps his tone calm and controlled even though his emotions are tearing him apart from the inside out. 

They get her on the ambulance when Bobby calls it on Julia. Hen falls back to sit on her haunches and defeatedly sighs, wiping the sweat away from her head.

-

Buck feels numb. 

The ride back to the station is one big blur and before he knows it, he’s out of his gear and walking to the locker room when he’s stopped.

By Chimney.

“Buck, can we please talk?” 

Buck clenches his fists and takes in a deep breath before shaking his head. “No.”

“Buck, c’mon–”

“I  _ can’t  _ right now, man. I said no.” He starts off weak, his voice catching, but ends strong. Putting his foot down. 

He lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding when he hears Chimney walking away. He grabs his work out clothes from his locker and slams the locker door shut, too many emotions coursing through him that needed to be let out somehow. 

The punches to the bag start slow, controlled, but soon, the hurt takes over. The anger takes over. 

A particularly hard swing echoes through the station, following the growl that rips loose from his throat. Buck pays no attention to the footsteps sounding from the staircase behind him.

He gives a quick glance at Eddie as he plants himself against the wall to the side of Buck but leaves it at that and continues to swing. 

“You wanna tell me what the hell is going on with you, Buck?” Eddie’s voice is tinged with concern, frustration, and desperation and Buck doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know what to say, how to get the words out. Like Dr. Copeland pointed out, he hides his true feelings from people and he thinks nothing’s ever been more true. 

“Nothing’s going on, Eddie.” 

Eddie huffs. “Right. You promised me we’d talk last night and then when I woke up, you were gone.”

_ “Eds, please, hurry up. Make me-” _

_ “Forget, yeah, I got you, Buck. Just… promise me we’ll talk after?” _

“I had plans with Chimney.” He huffs out the lie.

“Really? That’s funny, because Chimney says he hasn’t seen you since last night.” Eddie’s voice raises just a little but it’s enough to make Buck freeze. He blinks, takes off the gloves, and turns to leave.  _ How hypocritical he is, talking about how everyone always leaves, when here he is, literally running away from every little problem. _

He makes it to the locker room before he realizes Eddie followed him.

“If you think it was a mistake then please just tell me instead of lying to me and shutting me out.” 

The hurt in Eddie’s voice is so strong Buck completely freezes. When he goes to take in a deep breath, it gets caught in his throat and he can’t bring himself to move or try again. 

**_“I have always been honest with you.”_ ** When Eddie’s voice cracks, Buck’s composure almost cracks with it. “Why can’t you just be honest with me?”

The tears Buck tried to keep in started to fall and he should really  _ breathe, he’s getting dizzy, he should breathe but he’s scared of the sound that’s going to come when he tries.  _

_ “Buck.” _

The sob erupts from the back of his throat before he can stop it and the force of it has him gasping for a breath he can’t quite catch. 

“Shit, Buck?” He hears before Eddie’s in front of him. “Hey, man, it’s okay.  _ It’s okay.  _ Just,  _ talk to me,  _ Buck.”

Another breath gets caught in his throat and the only thing Buck can think to do is bring his shaking hand up to his chest as if he could rub away the  _ agony.  _

Eddie goes to catch him before he even realizes he’s keeling over, his hand still trying to clutch at his chest, and Buck can only imagine how scary this must seem to Eddie. He tries to calm himself down for the sake of Eddie but breaths just keep getting stuck. 

“Is this another panic attack or is something else going on, Buck? Do I need to call Hen and Chimney down here? 9-1-1?” He can tell Eddie’s trying not to panic for the sake of not freaking Buck out even more.

“Don’t g-g-get Chimney,” He stutters out, he can barely get the words out of his mouth. “I- I don’t need med-medic-medical attention.”

Once Eddie believes that Buck is just overwhelmed, he jumps right into the only grounding exercise that ever seems to work for Buck and once he can feel something other than the mind-numbing pain that came along with the  _ secret,  _ he turns to apologize.

“You don’t have to apologize for that, you already know this.” Eddie reassures.

Buck shakes his head. “No… I’m sorry for leaving. I just, Eddie, I-  _ I love you,  _ and I felt like I’d just messed up the only place I’d felt at home in. Everything came rushing back and- and I couldn’t face it when I was being forced to face everything else.  _ I’m sorry.” _

Eddie smiled as Buck admitted he loved him, cheeks tinged pink, but listened intently to the rest.

“Hey, you didn’t mess up anything. I love you, too, Buck. So much. You’re always going to have a place in our home, last night didn’t change that. I actually kind of thought it solidified that, but I guess I didn’t do too great of a job showing you just how much you belong there.”

The knowledge that Eddie loves him back both thrills and scares him. 

“Eddie. I-I, you have to know, I’m not ready for anything ri-right now. I love you, shit, I love you so much. I’m just a mess right now and I don’t even know who I am, not anymore, not ever and I feel like I’m just floating with no way to land and I can’t… put that on you. I can’t- I mean, before I came to you last night…”

“Hey, it’s okay, we can talk through everything later. I’ve still got your back, ready or not.” He sees Eddie hesitate and the nausea comes back.  _ Please don’t take it back.  _ “Can you tell me why you came to me in the first place?”

It’s tense, quiet for a minute, as Buck decides to tell his best friend,  _ his person,  _ the secret that came into his life like a bomb to blow up everything he thought he knew about himself and his life.

“They told me I was adopted.” 

It’s so quiet in there, he could practically hear the crickets chirp. Though, he’s pretty sure that might be his heart.

“I, wow, Buck.” He clears his throat. “I don’t even know what to say. What can I do? To help, I mean.”

Buck, ever the one to deflect, smirks sadly at Eddie’s wording. “There he is.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve been too good with your words, I was starting to think alien possession made its way into our 2020.” He snorts. 

Eddie feigns offense. “Man, you know when it comes to you, I’ve almost always been good with words. You, on the other hand?” 

“Hey now,” Buck tries to fight back the first real smile since his parents had gotten into town, but gives up fighting it. “To answer your question, you’ve already done the only thing that can help me now.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“You stayed.” 

**Author's Note:**

> ok seriously when i say this wasn't one of my favorites, i mean it   
> sooooo pls comment, comment comment, anything. kudos too :)  
> come scream with me ab buck begins on my tumblr @buckleysjareau


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